


our love's sweet enough (a consequence of what you do to me)

by MapleTreeway



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 1970s, Alternate Universe - Human, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Professor Aziraphale, Snippets, aziraphale waxing poetic about crowley for 5 chapters gay, bartender crowley
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2020-10-21 11:41:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20692931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MapleTreeway/pseuds/MapleTreeway
Summary: He's aimless. His residence is another half-hour walk away. Raindrops splatter against his coat. A threat to its perfect condition.Inside is warm, dry. He hears the sound of darts hitting a nearby board; the cheers from people watching the football game. The lighting's low. Smoke-strewn. And he's seated at the bar now, canvas briefcase on the ground between his feet. Tumblers glitter like the watch the bartender wears. It's impossible, he thinks as the bartender asks what he wants, to grow hair that red. Or to wear sunglasses in such a dim room.





	1. downy

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a mashup of lyrics from Lana's song "Bartender", and Beach House's "Myth". Can you tell where this fic is headed?  
I wrote this primarily because my WIP 9k+ ineffable husbands fic is eating me up and I needed to write something else for a bit. Also! I wanted to see if this style of dream-like snippets works? I enjoyed writing it but I have no idea if it's Too Abstract

17:43, rain thundering down. A tartan coat gets pulled tighter around his person. An old canvas briefcase gets lifted upwards to shield himself. The sidewalk darkens to a steel grey. He hears the conversations of people surrounding him. All going where need be. 

He's aimless. Work’s left him rattled in his cage. His residence is another half-hour walk away. Raindrops splatter against his coat. A threat to its perfect condition.

Inside is warm, dry. He hears the sound of darts hitting a nearby board; the cheers from people onlooking a pool game. The lighting's low. Smoke-strewn. And he's seated at the bar now, canvas briefcase on the ground between his feet. Tumblers glitter like the watch the bartender wears. It's impossible, he thinks as the bartender asks what he wants, to grow hair that red. Or to wear sunglasses in such a dim room.

The merlot pours gentler than the rain outside.

Maroon, navy, grey, gold.

Rustles around in his coat pocket; pulls a Muratti out its package. Hands one to the bartender.

“Crowley. Anthony J. Crowley,” the bartender says, accepts.

“Ezra Fell.”

He lights him up.

* * *

Weeks pass. Months fly. It’s no use, he’s forgotten where the bar resides.

* * *

He follows. Soldier to a company he’s loyal to yet doesn’t completely adhere to. Last in tow, always. Summer in his hair, warm winter in his eyes. One of his coworkers, but a sore thumb among them.

He follows down streets, around corners, in front of cars. Bar after bar. Gabriel, Michael, and Uriel all go from sober to tipsy to drunk. Bar after bar. Interiors go from soft reds to bold blues to neon greens. Bar after bar. He goes from sober to tipsy to wishing he were anywhere else. 

Bar after bar.

Wishes classes weren’t over; doesn’t feel up to celebrating.

Maroon, navy, grey, gold.

He remembers.

There’s a shock of red hair behind the counter. Lifts weight off his shoulders. _Anywhere else_ becomes _here_. He observes the bartender at work, catches his eye, raises an eyebrow. Listens to the downy piano notes spinning from the record player. Inhales, for the first time tonight, the feeling of living, of presence. The bartender nods, a fleeting doorway.

He leaves his party. From a booth to a barstool.

“Crawly, was it?”

Sunglasses meet the winter sky. “Crowley.”

“Ah, apologies.”

The merlot still pours gently as ever. The Muratti still is accepted, though pocketed. Their conversation flows and babbles like a lazy river. Faint brushes, skin on skin, every once and again. A sunset after a rainy day.

“Are they your lot?”

“Hmm?” Hypnotic, the way Crowley wipes a martini glass clean. His eye swings from it to where his coworkers glare at him. Gabriel’s enraged, visible like that of a storm over the mountains. He feels weighted down again, downy notes becoming bricks. “I suppose so.”

Turns back. Finds himself the target of an arched brow. “Suppose so?”

He feels a loud commotion, hears the hand that lands on his shoulder. The world swims. “Ezra, a word. _ Outside _.”

“Quite rude to interrupt a conversation,” Crowley says. Stows the martini glass under the counter. Never once breaks eye contact with him.

“Fuck off. My colleague here was just leaving this hellhole.”

Seven quid slam on the counter. 

He’s thrown at the mercy of violets. 

* * *

He shows up again the next night. Remembers the name of the bar. _ Temptation Station. _ A green light comparable to that of Gatsby’s. Gabriel should not have been surprised.

Crowley is not there.

Whiskey on the rocks. Patrons cheer on the football game. Whiskey, neat this time. Patrons flirt with openness to one another. Whiskey — Patrons — 

A sinkhole of saudade opens within him. Envelops him in a hug of someone he’d much rather touch. 

He does not come back for weeks. 


	2. cumulus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Backs to the garden, in a truly demonic scrawl, Crowley writes down his number on the bookmark placed where Whitman hums.

15:37, leaves saunter vaguely downwards. Whitman speaks to him out of where he’s bound. Pages crisp, pristine despite their age and usage. Familiar. People pass him by from his place seated on a bench. Autumn celebrates her birthday today. A dog barks in defense of its parent as the ducks' lounge on the banks of the pond. 

And Whitman is singing to him now.

_ Here by myself away from the clank of the world, _

He feels a finger tap his shoulder. Whitman mutes. Turns around, no one’s there. Turns the other way and —

“Good Lord!”

Sunsets, rain, merlot. A green light amidst the fog; one previously thought extinguished. He lights up.

“Been a while,” Crowley says. Raises an eyebrow, then lounges against the bench. “This where you been?”

“Mostly, yes, when my schedule allows. Still a bartender then?"

Crowley hums, swings and crosses one leg over the other. “What else would I be, a demon?”

Oh, it felt wonderful to converse with him once more! Burst from the ether and into the wild. Heart, it races like that of a maverick sweeping ashore. Lips move, talk; hands brush, study Whitman. Unforeseen in the best possible way. Fortuna smiles upon them.

“Oh, bah, you know. Out for a stroll before the weather becomes _ abysmal._”

And they’re strolling along now. Ducks flap about in the water to their right; ducklings call out to their mothers. Crowley speaks, voice a vintage wine which flows out a glass-blown decanter. Sometimes it sputters, pours, stops altogether. But it's warm, with hints of citrus. And it opens him up, let's him in on this conversation of theirs.

_ Tallying and talk'd to here by tongues aromatic, _

Tipsy. 

He’s tipsy.

Shadows elongate. Venus says hello. Benches slowly clear.

Backs to the garden, in a truly demonic scrawl, Crowley writes down his number on the bookmark placed where Whitman hums. 

_ No longer abash'd, (for in this secluded spot I can respond as I would not dare elsewhere.) _

* * *

Gabriel does not look at him the same. Benign tolerance turns into something malignant. Cumulus clouds shifting, changing form into cumulonimbus clouds. Uriel, Michael, too.

He gives them nothing.

He teaches and teaches and goes to meetings and teaches some more.

He gives them nothing to thunder over.

* * *

The rotary spins. A long-awaited memory of its sound awakening stirred to life. Dust, with the smallest of its particles, dances in the air. Rejoices. His heart falls into step. Falls slightly faster than necessary at the click of a receiving line.

“Anthony J. Crowley speaking.”

“Oh, good, dialed the right number. It’s Ezra Fell.”

“Ezra! Nice to hear from you.”

The conversation spins. A flower floating down a soft stream, rushing nowhere. Leaves of grass stretch towards the sunlight outside. The grandfather clock in his study chimes the hour. Graded papers shift in the slight breeze from the white window. 

They say their goodbyes between promises of a time and place.

* * *

Loneliness escapes his body, takes flight. He is defenseless, alive, inside a vehicle traveling at the speed of sound. Crowley's voice soothes his nerves, though outwardly he still clenches his hands. 

Interiors dissolve, change, morph from the Bentley to a restaurant to a bar. Everywhere is somewhere. A saturation of color. They’re laughing and flying and bickering over the most mundane topics. Crowley offers differing viewpoints to arguments previously deemed a dead end. Challenges him. And he challenges Crowley in return. Coaxes tenderness and empathy and glasses of wine half full.

He blinks and he’s with Crowley and he blinks and he’s back in his empty flat.

Clandestine cumulus clouds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> excerpts are taken from the poem "In Paths Untrodden" by Walt Whitman


	3. woozy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wants and wants and the violets feather down around them, cry out, yet…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> something on the shorter side because chapter two of my other gomens fic is kicking my ass

23:16, it is terrifying, to know someone as he now knows Crowley. 

The fear comes, goes, much like the ocean folding in on itself. 

He lies drifting in and out, studies the ceiling in the low speckled light. Through the open window, an owl hoots, people laugh, traffic moves. Noises beckon a welcome distraction from woozy winterous thoughts that baffle him so. Leave him swimming without knowing how. He dove in at the deep end, where the water enticed him with its creature comfort of dry shelter, and now he had a foot beholden on brilliantly red coral. 

His curls freely float around his head. The red coral collapses. Reforms into someone else’s hair that falls between the chin and the shoulder. A frame to a familiar mustached face. And the lips are moving, speaking in tongues, about as helpful as sunglasses under the water. He reaches out, hand caressing Crowley’s aging face. They’re both aging. Everyone ages. They’re both past their prime. Everyone passes their prime. It’s better this way, he prefers him this way.

There’s something in his chest. It burns, thrashes, screams. He clutches, claws, screams. Mercy! Sight heaves wild blurs of the world. Lopsided. A hand covers his. Mercy! Both tear out thunderous patches of violets. Suspended. A hand cards through his hair. It feels like mercy at last.

Gentle, the tug. Closer. It’s the downy notes of the piano surrounding them, muted in water. Gentle, closer, foreheads against one another’s. His hands cup Crowley’s face. He wants and wants and the violets feather down around them, cry out, yet…

He wants.

He leans in.

Eyes open to a violet-less ceiling, to hands not on his chest nor in his hair. Rocks sewn inside his pockets. Weighted. He wakes so, to the noise of the unrelenting traffic and the rain pattering and the feeling of being spared.

* * *

“You’re going to have to be more giving, Angel.”

He huffs, adjusts the books he carries. They feel old, used, and bound with the same looseness as Crowley’s limbs lounging across his study’s sofa. Raindrops tap rhythmic hymns against the window. His mug of tea sits in its steam on the desk. Crowley’s sunglasses rest beside them.

Crowley watches him with eyes yellow and gold. An unknown medical anomaly, but not at all an unpleasant one. 

“I don’t want to sell books, I merely want to curate them.” 

“Ah, that’s all well and good. But the point is, the point is, Angel, that you’ll need income.”

He shoots him a withering glare. Of course, he knows this. He knows this as well as he knows that leaves change color in autumn. Or that Crowley drops by in his dreams unannounced. Or that beat poetry revolutionized the medium. 

But even still, he wants to open a bookshop. A place where literature flows off shelves like a fine sparkling wine. Not a violet nor a thunderstorm to be seen. “Don’t tell me,” he begins, stands taller, “that if given the chance, you wouldn’t leave your job to become a florist.”

Crowley raises an eyebrow, nods, says nothing. 

* * *

They’re in the park, grass beneath their feet. Three years since they’ve met, and still never a dull moment in time. Sweetened by Riesling grapes, really, when he catches the way Crowley gazes at him. Or sweetened by champagne grapes, really, when he gets caught gazing at Crowley.

He yearns to go further. To breach territory he has not gone into in a long time. When they drive in Crowley’s car, what would it be like? To put his hand on Crowley’s hand, where it rests on the stick shift? Or to put his hand on Crowley’s thigh? When they drink in his study, what would it be like? To lean in a bit too close, his head to fall on Crowley’s shoulder? Or lean in a bit too close, his lips to brush Crowley’s?

Yet that would throw him into thunder. That would cause a downpour of violets. His lot would break his sore thumb off. No, such things remain in fantasy. Such things do not remain in light for long. 


	4. canyon calling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is merely a consequence of circumstance.

23:38, there are things Ezra's left behind, steadily without thought. Rings, books, photographs. There are things Crowley's left behind, steadily without thought. Jackets, succulents, vinyl records. Their homes became enmeshed with one another. Tangled, a vine growing.

A glass of wine, red, as they adjourn next to Crowley's fireplace. Psychedelic rock notes spin around them, paints their conversation in much the same way Alton Kelly paints a poster. Closer, still, legs intimately bumping into one another's. And it's really very cataclysmic, this sense of shared space. Crowley's music and Ezra's conversation topic and this unrelenting togetherness they face.

"Oh, don't say such things."

Crowley leans forward, balances his hand on a knee that is not his. "But I mean it, Angel. Sincerely. We could live together."

There's the ticking of the starburst clock on the wall. Slow. There's the drum of Ezra's heart beneath his ribcage. Sped up. They've missed several steps, several opportunities, leading up to this. He's sure. Danced around them as Mick Jagger dances 'round the stage. Awkward with two left feet. Bumbling, fumbling, with all the confidence in the world. A moment, a touch, a look, missed connections.

The window seat they're lounging on falls out and under. He feels himself spiral down to his chamber of a heart. It's bloody and raw and he looks up at it, a nonbeliever looking up at God, and wonders when it's known.

Thunder rumbles somewhere to the left of his ear. He feels, rather than hears, himself say, "You go too fast for me, Crowley."

* * *

Winter sways through the cracked open car windows. Twists his stomach in disproportion. He's brought his journal full of poems he's written but never dared to exhibit. It's hidden in his canvas briefcase, tucked between Woolf and Ginsberg. Tucked away from knowing eyes yellow and gold.

The sunlight, in its weak constitution, moves through the interior of the vintage car. Never settles, never stays still. Trickles across their eyes before it moves at an angle across the dashboard. Flows with time, direction. The sunlight comes and goes how it pleases. A simple existence.

"I first began teaching after the war ended," he begins, because the memory hits him suddenly. Simple existences and how he'll never know their experience and the whatnot. "Students often came in disillusioned. They'd showcase it in their works, or tried to escape it by indulging in the reading material assigned."

Crowley's lips tighten a fraction around the corners. The speedometer ticks upwards.

"Gabriel couldn't quite empathize with their circumstance. Oh, yes, he knew all about the horrors of the war. But reading it in the paper is different than sitting in the experience, and he never learned how to sit with them."

"Did you?"

"Hm? Sit with them? Of course, I was deployed too. I've seen the war firsthand. I believe I was nineteen when it all began. Nasty business." 

There's a heavy, resigned sigh. "Nothing good ever comes from war."

They're two blocks away from Ezra's flat now. 1975 looms around the corner, two weeks away. Another decade half gone. It strikes him melancholic to know it. He puts his hand on top of Crowley's, squeezes, and lingers.

* * *

The term starts once more. He's thrown into the familiar structure of teaching, with its variety of students and papers and curriculum. Gabriel scrutinizes him further - has been scrutinizing him ever since the bar incident four years ago - to try and find a fireable offense. It scares Ezra a bit, scares him enough to nearly chase away his own happiness. But he still chooses to see Crowley and chooses to be his friend and chooses to draw lines in the sand he otherwise would not have drawn.

"This university prides itself on its professors, Ezra. Your reputation reflects that of the institution," Gabriel warns him now in the midst of Ezra's empty lecture hall. It's become a routine. Sandalphon, chairman on the board of directors, stands in front of the doors. Yet that is new. That is unprecedented.

"So it does." 

When they leave, ghastly as they came, he looks up at the thunder and the raining violets above his head and breaks his own sore thumb off.

* * *

He's sitting in the garden Crowley's grown. Spring sings in his ears and bees buzz to its tune and his pen pirouettes across his worn journal's pages. Crowley plants crimson clovers a ways away, humming some song or another. A small wicker basket of strawberries rests beside him.

_He spins in reds and falls in monochrome,  
much as I spin in monochrome but fall for reds._

_This is merely a consequence of attraction._

He wonders - eyes trained on the way Crowley handles the soil - if anything would be different between them if they were younger. In the present, but thirty years younger. If the naivety of their twenties could grant them freedom or fewer restrictions. Maybe Crowley really could have been a florist, and maybe Ezra himself could have ventured into owning a bookshop. Maybe they could have moved in together, and maybe they could have been fulfilled. 

It fills him with melancholy, tears filling up a wine glass. So he banishes the fantasy away, bashes the glass against his lecture hall's chalkboard. 

_We are caught between the pink haze of a private sunrise  
and the darkening twilight of societal sense._

_This is merely a consequence of circumstance._


End file.
